This is my fifth year working a program at the museum where kids and families come and stay the night but I’ve never completely camped out myself. All that changed on Friday evening when my sleeping bag, eye-mask and I huddled up on the stone floor of an ancient Egyptian mastaba for the evening. We had minimal staff that night and so I was actually in there alone, which I hadn’t counted on when I signed up for the whole thing. The floor I slept on was directly above an actual mummy and I’d be lying if I said I slept easy. In fact, I was a little freaked out and had to remind myself that ghosts aren’t real numerous times throughout the night. Of course, the ghost story I had recently heard about that exact spot of the museum didn’t exactly help things but I emerged unscathed, if slightly tired.

I slept under the sign in the upper right hand corner…and the glass pane people are hovering over looks directly down onto a mummy!

Everyone showed up around 6pm on Friday and we had numerous activities and programs to keep the kids entertained all evening. Lights out officially began at 10:30 and I went with another staff member to turn everything off so those sleeping in the exhibits could get some rest. Or at least, try to. It took us over an hour of wandering through random closets and backspaces to shut off the lights and I got to see spaces in the museum I’ve never seen before. We had one moment of sitcom-level hilarity when we were basically pushing buttons on computer screens and flicking random switches in panels to try to figure out which lights to turn off but we managed in the end, with just enough time to start doing late-night checks of the exhibits. Everyone was “supposed” to go to sleep around 12:30 so there was lots of pleading with kids to put their iPads away and go to bed, as their parents snoozed happily nearby. I finally laid down in my stone chamber around 2:30am but various weird noises and the complete unfamiliarity of my surroundings kept me up for another hour or so. The fact that I was sleeping right above a mummy didn’t help my comfort, I’m sure. We were all up and moving at about 6:30am so there was lots of coffee involved in my morning and I’m very thankful for it! I’m sure the kids were thankful too because us grown-ups may have been a bit more unpleasant had we been sans cups of joe.

I was really surprised at how well all of the kids behaved and it was a smooth evening all around. The children and their parents all seemed to have a blast and I got to know some of the museum staff a little bit better. I also was told a hilariously awful story about Dennis Rodman having a NYE party at the museum one night but that’s a tale for another time, as it’s definitely not appropriate for children!